Brian Burgess: The man behind Gov. Scott's message

Brian Burgess, the man charged with shaping Gov. Rick Scott's image and message, got his start working with reporters on behalf of a Kansas district attorney best known for prosecuting an abortion provider.

"I really don't miss some of you dips---s at all," Burgess e-mailed a Kansas reporter in 2008, after he left to work with a conservative PR firm in Virginia. "Have fun in your world of make-believe."

The line is vintage Burgess, the most combative communications director for a Florida governor in many years.

"He is a different type of communications director than we've ever seen, a full body contact, knuckle-to-knuckle press person — and I say that as a compliment,'' said Republican communications consultant Sarah Bascom. "If you have one of the most aggressive and one of the most knowledgeable capital press corps, as we do in Florida, having an aggressive knife-fighter communications director fits very well."